


A Pretty Damn Good Babysiter

by lofemawk



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Language, Rape Mentions, nothing explicit but still, trigger warning, tw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-05 04:26:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13380153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lofemawk/pseuds/lofemawk
Summary: Max Mayfield was broken.She was hated by her step-father and ignored by her mother.Her step-brother shoved her away and seized her close, too close, all at the same time.Her only friends were a ragtag group of nerdy boys who survived literal hell and a girl with batshit crazy mind powers.No one saw her as anything except for when he had his hands on her arms, his tongue snaking over his lips and his eyes glinting with hunger.Yep.Pretty fucking broken.





	1. A Torn Blue Strip of Cotton

**Author's Note:**

> If you want a non-poetic summary, Billy tries to rape Max. This is the story of what follows.
> 
> Once again, trigger warning. There won't be anything explicit, but be warned.
> 
> This had been on my mind for a while. I live in a pretty shitty part of town (you know the type, alleyways with shoes hanging from telephone wires and shit, crying babies, all that good stuff), so hearing about girls as young as 12 being raped isn't uncommon. This story hits really close to home with me, and I hope that you enjoy, I guess.

Max Mayfield was a bit of an enigma for Steve. He knew that she was Billy Hargrove’s stepsister and that she was friends with Dustin and his shithead group of nerds, but that was pretty much it. Steve also heard (but was unconscious at the time) that she injected Billy with knockout drugs, nearly bludgeoned his dick off with his nail bat, and screamed at him to leave her and her friends alone. So, needless to say, Steve was impressed with this kid, if slightly frightened. 

 

She also stole his car on no less than two occasions, one time to drive her and her friends to the arcade one day when Steve was sick and one time to drive to the supermarket to get...something or other. Steve didn’t really know. Steve had been pissed at her, but she had not apologized. According to her, she “didn’t crash your car, didn’t get noticed by the cops, and got to where I wanted to go when you couldn’t take me there.” In her book, that made everything cool.

 

Steve wished he wasn’t basing his life around the life of a bunch of thirteen year olds, but it did help him get his life together. He stopped drinking and smoking to set a good example, and between all the chauffeuring/babysitting and going on dates with Nancy and Jonathan (mostly going over to one of their houses and “studying”), he didn’t have enough time to be self-destructive with pot and alcohol when he was hit with crippling senioritis. 

 

This must be what parenting feels like, he thought as he waited outside the arcade against his car and picked at his fingernails. Well, this wasn’t so bad. The kids were little shits, but they were good kids, and they looked up to Steve. For some odd reason. The kids came out of the arcade and Max called shotgun, racing to the passenger seat, as Mike, Dustin, Lucas, El, and Will crammed into the backseat meant for three people. Steve was ninety-five percent sure that that was illegal, but whatever. He went on the tour of Hawkins, first dropping off Will and El at Will’s house, then Dustin, then Lucas and Mike who lived right by each other, and lastly Max. As usual, she hopped out of the car and slammed the door shut. Even from inside the car, Steve could hear the music blasting from inside the house. Billy, for sure.

 

Steve didn’t like to think too much about Billy. He had claimed Steve’s title as king of the school and always had a group of girls following him wherever he went. He was an asshole, though, but after he nearly killed Steve and Max screamed at him, he left her and her friends alone. Steve apparently counted as one of Max’s friends, since he hadn’t heard a peep from Billy since the events in November. He wished there was something he could do about Max, though. He didn’t have evidence that Billy was hurting her, but he had his suspicions. But Max was a tough kid. She wouldn’t stand for any bullshit.

 

She didn’t look very tough when she showed up at Steve’s door at half-past three in the morning, two weeks after the day at the arcade, sobbing pitifully. 

 

“Jesus Christ, Max, are you okay?” Steve said, stepping aside to let her in. He was wearing nothing but his boxers, but Max didn’t seem to care. 

 

“Steve…” she sniffled. “...can I spend the night?”

 

“Uh...sure. What happened, are you hurt?”

 

Once Max stepped into the light of the house, Steve got a good look at her. She was muddy and wearing inappropriately cold clothing, a simple T-Shirt and jeans and Converse in the frigid March snow that was somehow colder than the snow in December. Both of the knees on her pants were ripped and blood had soaked the fabric around her kneecaps. Her shirt had been twisted as she ran, and one of the sleeves was down her shoulder. An exposed strap--a bra, most likely--had seemingly been ripped and the flimsy blue strip hung limp against her shoulder. Oh no.  _ Oh no _ .

 

Steve stepped backwards as Max pulled off her shoes and entered the kitchen. Steve was now aware how ridiculous he looked, nearly naked and gripping a nail-studded bad (he had been spooked by the knocking in the dead of night). He ran upstairs and pulled on a pair of gym shorts and a Hawkins High sweatshirt and propped his nail bat against his bedside table. 

 

When he got back downstairs, Max was sitting at his kitchen table, holding her head in her hands and gripping at her red hair. Her shoulders were quivering. She was crying again. Steve realized with a start that he had never seen the kid cry. Max looked up. “Can I have a beer?”

 

Steve felt his parental instincts rise. That was not the question he had in mind. “Uh, no. You’re underage.”

 

Max sniffled again. “So are you.”

 

Steve sighed and headed to the kitchen. He filled a kettle with water and put it on the stove to boil. Then, he sat down across from Max. 

 

“Did he...did he hurt you?”

 

There was no need to ask who “he” was.

 

Max looked down. “He came home from a date with some girl and he...he was  _ angry _ . He was so angry, and I was there, and he came and tried to…” she gestured vaguely towards her chest. Steve felt bile rising in his throat as Max cleared her throat. “I backed away, but he followed me into my room and started cursing me out, calling me a slut and a bitch and…” her voice broke. “He undid his jeans and shoved me down onto the bed and...and I was so  _ scared _ , so I kicked him, but then he got even  _ angrier  _ and pinned me down. I...I didn’t know what to do, so I kicked him... _ there _ ...and jumped out the window. That’s how I hurt my knees.”

 

Steve felt his blood boiling. He would kill that son of a bitch. He would murder Billy with his own two hands. Max was looking at him now, as if asking what she should do. He stared at his hands, which were balled into fists so tightly his knuckles were white. He would talk to Jonathan and Nancy first and maybe...maybe go to Chief Hopper. But for now, he would let Max stay at his place. For as long as she needed. 

 

Steve escorted her to the bathroom and, after some consideration, gave her one of his T-Shirts to wear as pajamas. While she showered, Steve set up the guest bedroom and went down to the forgotten hot water. He poured it into a mug and tipped a hot cocoa packet into it. When Max came out of the bathroom, her hair was damp and her face looked like it had been scrubbed, hard. Steve could even make out fingernail marks on her cheeks. Her knees had also been tended to, and several mini Band-Aids (Steve didn’t have any of the big kind) covered them and also the palms of her hands. She drank the cocoa while Steve ate from one of the packets with a spoon and stared at her.

 

“So…” Steve began. Max peered up at him. “Do you want to go to school tomorrow?”

 

Max shook her head slowly.

 

“Okay. Whaddya want me to tell the boys?”

 

“Please don’t tell them. They don’t need to know.”

 

Steve looked Max square in the eye. “Listen to me, Max. I won’t tell them, but you need to know that  _ this wasn’t your fault _ , okay? Billy is a maniac and an awful son of a bitch, and you never need to feel like you’re worse for having to deal with him.”

 

Max was crying again. She stood up and turned to go upstairs to the guest room. “Steve,” she said from the top step, “thank you.”


	2. Quarters

Steve took the next day off from school. After laying in bed staring at the ceiling for a bit, he padded across the landing to the guest bedroom and knocked on the door. He opened it after a bit, and found Max curled up fast asleep in a mountain of blankets. A few seconds after he opened the door, she startled awake and twisted her neck to look at him, blinking blearily.

 

“Hey,” Steve said. Now that the initial shock of the previous night’s events had worn off, he was feeling pretty awkward.

Max cleared her throat. “Hey.”

 

Steve looked around the room, trying to avoid eye contact while Max rubbed the last bit of tiredness away. Would he have to spend all day with this girl?

 

“D’you wanna go to the arcade today? On me.” 

 

Max blinked. “Uh, okay. Sure. Thanks.”

 

“Sure thing.”

 

While Steve scrambled eggs and toasted bread, Max changed back into her clothes from the night before. Steve had cleaned them, but they were woefully inadequate for the frigid winter. So Steve lended her one of his winter jackets, which was so large on her that it looked like a short dress.

 

Steve crammed some quarters into his pocket and they clambered into his car towards The Palace.

 

Despite everything, Steve was a bit excited to see Mad Max in action. He, like many boys, had gone through an arcade phase when he was about thirteen that he could see Dustin’s group were in the midst of. He had been absolute shit at video games, but from what he had heard about Max, she was a video game  _ maverick.  _

 

As they pulled into The Palace’s parking lot, Max barreled out of the passenger seat and Steve closely followed her, taking out four dollars worth of quarters to give to her.

 

Keith, one of the workers at The Palace, nodded at Steve. “Harrington.”

 

“Daniels.” Keith was a year older than Steve, and stayed in Hawkins after he graduated. 

 

Max took the Ziploc bag of quarters from Steve, supplemented it with some of her own quarters, and took off for the Dig Dug machine while Steve tried to make conversation with Keith. He promptly gave up and went to watch Max play.

 

The boys were right. She was incredible. Within minutes, she was at the top of the leaderboard. That was when she moved on to Dragon’s Lair, and then Ms. Pacman. Before they knew it, she was clean out of quarters. It was almost lunchtime anyway, so Steve told her to run to the bathroom. She grumbled about how she didn’t need to go, but Steve had a mission.

 

After Max stormed to the bathroom, Steve dug in his pocket and produced one final quarter, worn down from months in his jeans. He slipped it into the Ms. Pac-Man machine and began to play. As predicted, he was absolute garbage at it, missing dots everywhere and dying repeatedly.

 

“Steve?” An incredulous voice startled him. Lucas, Dustin, Mike, and Will were all standing there.

 

“Jesus! What the hell are you guys doing here?” 

 

“Lunch break,” Mike said, as if that explained anything. “More importantly, why are  _ you  _ here?”

 

Steve spluttered for a bit. Max didn’t want them to know. He was notoriously bad at keeping secrets, but he would protect Max’s privacy on this if it was the last thing he did. Finally, he managed to get some fully-formed words out. “Lunch break.”

 

They did not look even a little bit convinced. “Is Max here?”

 

“What? No!” Steve managed to say. “Look, I wanted to catch up with my man Keith here. Is that such a crime?”

 

As if summoned by his name, Keith appeared, cradling his giant bag of jumbo Cheetos in the crook of his arm. “Shouldn’t you kids be at school?”

 

The boys ignored him, craning their neck to look behind Steve. A flash of red crossed his peripheral vision. Oh no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love comments. Please let me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment your thoughts. I'd love to hear them.


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